


We Are What We Are

by Tammany



Category: NCIS: New Orleans
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 09:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12603580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: I think I may be the only person in all the world who thinks King Pride and Loretta Wade are as good as married already--the real thing. Screw all the stories of raggedy-ass old craggy-faced white men falling in love with skinny blonde girls half their ages. King and Loretta are not just the Dad and Mom of their extended team-they're friends on a deep, deep level, they co-parent without fighting over who's got power when and where, and there's something there between them that's not there between any other character in that show--and I like that show. And I'm tired of stupid, predictable matches between "appropriate" couples.King Pride and Loretta...late night at the bar, considering where it all might go.





	We Are What We Are

It had taken a little while for the bar to finally come back into its own. Blow a place up as bad as that place had been blown up and people think twice about hanging out there. But that weekend, late in autumn, on a rare "cool" night in Nola, Pride had wallowed in the joy of seeing the old joint come back to life, crammed full of everything his city had to offer. It had shone like a Victorian garnet necklace in firelight, flashing and faceted, ember-hearted and alive. He'd worked the bar, pulling draft beer for dozens of customers, mixing drinks, pouring out shots. He rode the waves of their coming and going, secure and steady as the laughter rose and fell, the piano carried the voices of singers on a steady swell of melody.

The team had come, determined to do all they could to help Pride find and retain his own stability. It had been a bitch of a year. They'd almost lost him.

He'd almost lost himself.

That was then, he thought, wiping the gleaming bar counter with a wet rag, then a dry one. Now it was what it was: it was good. It was all good.

The place was beginning to thin out at last. Given the hour, that was only right. There were a few tables left ringed by determined drinkers, having a good time and reluctant to risk the vibe on a move to someone's apartment. A pair of lovers in one of the booths, too wound around each other, mouth to mouth and hands roaming, to have realized how late it was. In the back of the room Loretta and the interim Mayor, Paula Boyd, were pulled up close to the piano, where a young man of color filled the place with his playing, and with a voice like aged sippin' whiskey. Boyd thought she had a voice, and wasn't so very wrong. She had probably been star of her mother's church choir as a girl, and she knew her way around a gaudy, ornamented harmonic line tumbling full of grace notes and rills. Loretta, looking like a queen in a bold green and peacock print dress with a coordinating headdress, crooned along--not half so showy as Boyd and the boy at the piano, but solid and secure as a well-set foundation stone, her voice a rumble and a purr.

He risked a smile, looking at her, and allowed himself to think the place felt like home with her here.

He knew when she arrived, on the nights she allowed herself to leave home. Danny was off to college, now, but CJ was still home, and Loretta took great care that she never let him doubt his home was her home, and she was his anchor and his certain ally.

She was a good mother, Pride thought, feeling awkward respect rise up in him. Better than his ex wife, and better than he himself managed to be. It was no easy thing to raise black boys in this world even if they were your own flesh and blood, and in your care and keeping from birth onward. To make a go of it starting late and in mid-catastrophe?

  
He felt like it was his honor to do what he could to help her--and a greater honor when she chose his bar for the few nights she gave herself to be a free woman, rather than a mother and a coroner. He could have done without Boyd cluttering up his joint--but he'd accept even her, knowing that Boyd and Loretta shared a bond that mattered to his friend.

He was ready when Loretta rose and stalked regally across the near-empty room to the bar. She swayed--relaxed, a little drunk but not plowed, enjoying being strong and female and no longer too young to trust her own choices. She leaned on the bar, flashing a smile at Pride.

"Another round, King. I'm having--"

"No--I know. You're the rum and cola, Boyd's the chablis. The boy's a draft IPA, and his girl's just orange soda."

"She's under age, you know," Loretta said, sounding comfortable with the knowledge.

"Yeah. But she minds her manners, sticks close to her friends, and stays with soda and juice. I'd rather have her here where we all know she's safe than out somewhere bored and alone."

Loretta nodded, eyes wise. "One of the things I like about you is that you know when to look the other way--and why."

He smiled back, gathered up their drinks, and picked up the tray.

"I can carry it," she said.

"No. It's late. I thought I'd come back and listen to the music awhile." He lifted his chin to the remaining bartender, grabbed a cola of his own, and took everything back to the little table by the piano. "You're playing mighty fine tonight, Shay," he told the boy. The boy's girl smiled in pride, and then in gratitude when he handed her the can of orange soda and the glass of ice.

Shay grinned, and raced his fingers up and down the keyboard. "Fine night. Fine instrument. Fine company. Can't play anything but fine on a night like this, sir."

King smiled, pulled up a chair, and listened for the next hour, as the bar slowly emptied out, and the barkeeper left on duty closed up for the night. Boyd kept on singing, joined for awhile by Shay's girl, who had a voice to shake down dust from the rafters--an archangel's glory of sound. Then Boyd called it a night, and offered Shay's girl a lift home. Shay looked at Loretta, and said, "You know this one?" He ran his fingers restlessly over the keys, and husked, "A desert road from Vegas to nowhere..."

She nodded. "I'm Calling You." She took it up, turning the lines into spoken need. "A desert road from Vegas to nowhere, some place better than where you've been; A coffee machine that needs some fixin', a little cafe around the bend..." It was edgy restlessness, hungry need, loneliness at midnight, longing desire. She didn't sing a note, but it flowed like smoky music out over the room. Pride went hard with the heat of it, the moment he heard the first words. He looked away, hair rising along the nape of his neck, breath catching.

This was the Loretta he knew and never mentioned. This was the King she guessed but never forced into the light. This was hunger and white nights and yearning.

Shay, his own voice pure melody, chimed in singing the fluid chorus, "I am calling you; can't you hear me? I am calling you."

They were the only people left in the bar, now. The barkeep had waved and left, locking the door behind him and turning out the lights in the main area. It was just Shay, and his one true love--the piano--and King and Loretta, in their own complicated bond.

She sounded like his heart felt--alone, and needing to be otherwise. It wasn't anything new to either of them, though.

Shay finished up, hooked his jacket with one finger, and stood. He nodded to both of them. "Night, Miz Wade. Night, King." Saying nothing more he loped easily to the back door, and left through the storage room, heading for the back alley.

King stood up and began collecting the last of the bottles and glasses. Loretta joined him, silently, without being asked. Together they went in the dim, dark bar, joining each other at the bar sink. Loretta dumped the bottles in the recycle. Pride ran hot water and grabbed the bottle brush and a clean bar rag. He washed the glasses. Loretta, finding a clean cloth, dried them and set them to cool and steam on the counter. It took less than three minutes, and they were done.

He glanced at her, a side-eyed look he knew she wouldn't miss, but which left them both free to ignore it. She looked good, her dress shining in the low light, her head high, her posture graceful. She felt right, there beside him.

"Someday I'm going to kiss you," he said, putting the bottle brush and the bar rag away, no longer looking at her.

She chuckled under her breath. "Only if I don't kiss you first, old man. But not tonight. Not yet."

He nodded. Her two boys didn't need an old white man for a step father--not right now. His daughter didn't need someone as strong and grounded as Loretta to make her mother look bad right now, either. It wasn't time for that. Not yet.

He slid his hand across the counter and grabbed hers, squeezing tight. "I can wait."

"Me, too." There was a smile in her voice, and he looked over at her, meeting her eyes this time. "We're good," she said.

"We are." He pulled her close and hugged her--chaste and desiring, patient and restless with longing. "What kind of crazy are we?"

She shrugged in his arms. "We are what we are. Is that so bad?"

"Hell, no," he said, holding her tighter. Then he let her go. "Drive you home?"

"Brought my own car," she said. "But you can walk me out and make sure I'm safe. It's a dangerous city this late at night."

"It's a dangerous city any time," he agreed, and walked the queen of his heart to her car, where she smiled and kissed her King on the cheek, and drove away.

 

 

CCH Pounder singing "I'm Calling You," with Raspin, from her album Smoke.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Z3NjV8NS8


End file.
